ABSTRACT

This book focuses on new immigrant families from the People’s Republic of China to New Zealand and investigates how these families have adapted to New Zealand immigration policy regime, which does not accommodate their cultural preference to live as multigenerational families easily. The book analyses a three-generation framework: First-generation adult immigrants, their children and older parents. It examines how migratory mobility and intergenerational dynamics configure migratory trajectories of individual family members and shape their family lives and sense of identity.

The book sheds light on how different family generations pursue their own interests and goals while maintaining family unity and cohesiveness in contexts of increasing transnational mobility opportunities and constraints. It also investigates how familial ties, transnational connections and a sense of identity and belonging are defined and redefined during the process of transnational migration. This book can serve as a heuristic reference to and meaningful comparative parameter for studying transnational family migration in other contexts.

As a significant theoretical contribution to the theory of transnational family formation in contexts where restrictive immigration policies result in members of multigenerational families living across different countries, this book will be of interest to academics in the fields of sociology, anthropology, race and ethnic studies as well as Asian and Chinese studies.

chapter 1|24 pages

Introduction

New Chinese immigrant families from the People's Republic of China to New Zealand – approaching the topic

chapter 3|23 pages

From inclusion to exclusion

Family sponsorship and older parent reunification immigration under New Zealand's neoliberal immigration regime

chapter 4|9 pages

“Forced” transnational migration

From a multigenerational familial perspective

chapter 5|14 pages

Seasonal parents/grandparents

Transnational care circulation in new Chinese immigrant families

chapter 6|14 pages

Reverse remittance

Challenging the traditional morality and power relation

chapter 7|15 pages

Conclusion

The making of floating families in transnational social space